


The Lunch Bunch

by boogieshoes



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogieshoes/pseuds/boogieshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris Larabee has a regular lunch meeting on Wednesdays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lunch Bunch

The Lunch Bunch

Chris closed the door with a sigh of relief, dropped his suitcase on the floor with a muffled thud, swept off his trademark duster and Stetson. He was running a little late for his weekly Wednesday meeting, a fact supported by the other coats hung up on the convenient little rack of pegs next to the door. Fortunately, the coffee would always be hot here, and generously doled out, made by experts. His mouth twitched at the soft murmuring behind him, and he quite deliberately bent over at the waist to retrieve his briefcase, showcasing his black-denim-clad rear to the members of this group that were already present. He didn't even try to stop the wide grin at the laughter and "woo-hoos" that greeted him; most of the ladies who came to The Stitchery's Wednesday Lunch Bunch meetings weren't shy at all about showing their appreciation for his assets. It never went beyond a little good-natured flirting, and the group was very good about stopping before things got too embarrassing or ribald - or when he got too into his stitching. Still, it was a bit of lightness in his life that he didn't have to compete for.

Not that the guys were bad about such things - they weren't sore losers, mean with their practical jokes or banter, or so aggressive when playing a physical game that they hurt each other. He wouldn't have them on his team if they were. No, they weren't bad, but they *were* men, manly, macho men who were still in the dating scene (except Nathan), and still trying to prove their manly merits (JD much more seriously so), and their naturally competitive spirits frequently led to everything the team ever did together to becoming a competition of some sort. You wouldn't think it, but Ezra was the worst offender, goading the others with his side bets and pranks. And Chris wasn't above a friendly competition or two - or a football season's worth - himself, but sometimes, it was good to spend time with a group that was less competitive in their expression of friendship, and more, well, encouraging. He'd tried to explain it to Buck once, how stitching with this group and gossiping about someone's wedding or kids or the latest problems with iphone apps was just as fun and supportive as drinking with the boys at the Saloon, but everything he tried to say just came out wrong.

Buck, being Buck, understood anyway. Or perhaps he just understood that Chris really liked cross-stitching, and needed support for it in a way he'd never get from their adrenaline-junky team members. So he smoothly kept up the mild fiction that Chris had a weekly administrative meeting with the higher ups, something none of the other team members really wanted to know about or get in on. And Chris made his way every Wednesday, rain or shine, to this little needlework shop a few blocks from the Federal Building where they worked to spend some time with fellow stitchers.

He smiled in genuine warmth as he made his way to the table in the middle of the store. "Hi Johanna, Mark."

No matter how early he arrived, Johanna Smith was always already there, nestled next to the table in her wheelchair, her PT/ live-in helper Mark Tatum curled up in the nearby wingback chair reading the latest action-thriller. Johanna had joined them nearly a year ago, now. She'd been in a very bad car accident just before she moved to Denver, one which had involved an extraction via the jaws of life. Chris didn't have to imagine it, having seen a similar accident in his patrolman days. Johanna was in for a long recovery, but Mark had told him that she was determined to walk again, to be as independent as she once was. Chris didn't doubt she'd make it. The Lunch Bunch met after her therapy session at Denver General, and Chris had seen her in all sorts of moods and all levels of pain, but she never missed a Wednesday, her stitching both reward and distraction from her situation.

Chris sat down at the table, and opened his briefcase. Needleworkers usually toted around kit bags which kept their current projects tidy, but Chris stuffed his 'work project' into the bottom pouch of his briefcase. When it was covered in folders, no one even realized it had anything in it. Of course, that could be because people rarely even noticed the pouch was there in the first place. Chris had designed it himself and put it together - he'd gotten a bit sneaky and decided make it a 'secret compartment', camoflauged against the bottom of the briefcase itself. Obviously, all the stitchers in the group knew about it, so it wasn't much of a secret, but still, it had been a satisfying exercise in keeping his hand in.

The project he pulled out today was a brown and white pinto with some war paint on it; he was doing it for Vin. 'Work projects' were easier and smaller than his usual fare - he secretly loved the large, intricate designs adapted from classical painters, which he bought online from Heaven and Earth Designs, or Golden Kite, or Mystic Stitch. At home, he was working on a piece called 'Lissandra', a large picture of a beautiful exotic dancer wearing mostly strategically placed silver chains. It was a bit of an experimental piece for him - he intended to string actual silver jewelry chains and Swavorsky crystals onto the picture over the stitched chains and jewels, the first time he'd ever added materials not called for in a design. But he thought Buck would like it hanging in his bedroom, the sensual dancer calling to mind everything Buck liked about women, and skin, and sex.

Chris jumped as he felt a dog-nose nudge at his thigh. That was Melman, 'the other man' in Johanna's life, a Great Dane used as a service dog.

"I swear that dog is the most spoiled animal on the planet!" Johanna scowled, but the affection in her voice came through loud and clear.

"Not wearing his vest?" Chris was familiar enough with working dogs to know that they should be left alone while 'on duty', no matter how friendly they were.

"The goofball actually managed to pull it off himself today," Mark drawled without looking up from his book.

"At least he waited until he was underneath the table?"

Mark and Chris both snorted at that. "Ah, he just knows you won't punish him here," Chris said. Then he opened up a snack pack of peanut-butter crackers for the dog, happily spoiling the animal himself.

The toilet in the back of the store flushed, and Kelly O'Dell came out, scrubbing her hands on her blue jeans. Chris glanced over his shoulder at her, did a classic double-take, and laughed delightedly.

Kelly was 'black Irish' - short and skinny, with naturally ink-black hair and huge dark eyes. Her skin was so pale that she'd been mistaken for a ghost before in the dark. She was going to the University of Colorado, constantly studying for her engineering classes, and as a consequence her dark eyes were ringed with semi-permanent blue-black bags - 'enough luggage to fill a KC-135,' she'd grumbled once. The girl tended towards comfortable clothing - jeans or shorts and a t-shirt, usually with some snarky saying or geeky reference on it. Today's shirt was black, with glittery lavender letters spelling out "no i'm not goth, why do you ask?"

"What?" Kelly glanced at her shirt and grinned. "Oh, yeah, I thought it was apropos, you know?"

She circled the table to sit across from him, tugging her backpack open. "Speaking of which, here." She handed him a tiny blue plastic frame with a small stitched flag and anchor in it.

"What's this for?" Chris was surprised, and touched. Kelly had been with them only three months, and this would be maybe the third or fourth project she'd ever done. She'd originally come into the shop right before Christmas, looking for something relatively cheap and easy to do for her mother for Christmas. The little potpourri bag she'd done up had been a hit with Mom, and Kelly had gotten hooked on stitching.

"Armed Forces Day," Kelly said sheepishly. "I know I'm late, but I wanted to do something for someone, and you're the only person I know locally who has served in the military." Chris knew it took her a while to work anything up, between doing homework and studying for tests, and it meant a lot to him that she'd thought of him.

"Thank you." Chris pulled the momento close to him, and took a few seconds to find his place on the war pony pattern. Once he was sure of it, he gestured to the two gray-haired women sitting to Kelly's right. "You have two more here, though - Shannon and Mary both served in MASH units in Korea."

"Yeah, but Kelly don't have a crush on one of us!"

"Mary!" Shannon reprimanded, but Kelly's blushing giggle left no doubt of the veracity of Mary's statement.

Kelly was opening another small kit, this one with a tiny pink hanger the finished piece was supposed to be attached to. She smoothed the paper pattern with one hand and looked at Chris from underneath lowered eyelashes. "What can I say? I'm a total lost cause."

"Honey, we all are," Mary grinned, looking for a moment more like the beautiful young woman she had been in the fifties, than the handsome seventy year old widow she was now. Mary Davidson's husband had died in Viet Nam, and she had never remarried. Instead, she had moved to Denver to live with and help Shannon with her children while her own husband fought in the Laotian peninsula. Roger Durant had come home from Viet Nam, unlike Mary's Tucker, and she'd moved out of Shannon's house, but the two women had remained firm friends through the ensuing years. When Roger died a few years ago, the two women had decided to move back in together to save on expenses.

Chris admired the two strong-willed women, both nurses until they had retired. Mary's service in the Army had ended after Korea, but she had been an emergency room nurse in Clarence, the hospital annex in Purgatorio. Even in the 60s and 70s, Purgatorio hadn't been the best area, but Mary's MASH experiences had led to a steady hand in the face of the worst of inter-gang rivalries.

Shannon had continued to serve in the military during Viet Nam, finally being honorably discharged some twenty years after she volunteered in the Nursing Corps. MASH units had really only been around in Korea, the exigencies of the changing battlefield making the mobile hospitals practical only for a short time. Although she had opted to rotate Stateside when she married Roger, Shannon had been instrumental in developing and heading a battlefield nurse training program, which exposed the young women of the time to the conditions they would encounter overseas in a more controlled setting. That training program was robust enough that it would later be adapted to help field medics find their way through the fog of war to help their wounded comrades.

Even today, the women volunteered in the Purgatorio shelter clinics, when they weren't sniping at each other like an old married couple - or united in mercilessly teasing their friends. Chris glared half-heartedly at them.

"Humph," Shannon said. "I outrank you young man, and my advice is to get used to it!"

The last phrase was sounded in a chorus, the appreciation of Chris's looks - and Chris's reaction to the teasing - being a commonly rehearsed conversation.

"I don't think you can complain anyway, after that little show earlier," Mark said, grinning. "Heck, *I* was drooling!"

The group laughed as the front door bell sounded.

"Look who we have here, ladies and gentlemen!" That clear, excited tone belonged to Diana Tuthlewait. Diana was a retired high school teacher, and knitter extraordinaire. She'd done some truly fascinating things with various yarns, and Chris could never quite believe his eyes when he watched some garment or other magically appear from her needles.

Diana was ushering in Gina Torres, and young Air Force Wife transplanted from San Antonio.   
Gina's husband was a young butter-bar lieutenant stationed at the local base, coordinating Army-Air Force training exercises. Normally, Gina would bring some dress or tunic she was embroidering in traditional Mestizo motifs for some extra spending money. Today, she was carrying a baby carrier securely holding her new baby girl, her first child, and only a few days old. Gina set the carrier down on the table, and nearly all of them abandoned their stitching. Mark even set down his book to coo over the girl in her little pink frock and the pink ribbon tied in a bow around her head.

"Such a cute little girl!" Shannon undid the buckles and lifted the baby up to her shoulder.

Chris smiled sympathetically at Gina. "Hard to let anyone else hold her, isn't it?" The young woman looked startled, and gave him a shy smile.

"She's beautiful," said Mark as he gently plucked the child from Shannon and just as gently deposited her in Johanna's waiting arms.

Johanna nodded her agreement. "Look at those eyes! Just looking all about her! What's her name, Gina?"

"Annette," said Gina, eyes glowing with motherly pride, "after my Grandmother."

"I'm sorry, Kelly," Johanna said kindly, turning towards the only person who hadn't jumped up to greet Annette, "would you like to hold her?"

"Me? No, uh, that's ok!" Kelly squeaked. The other women grinned at each other while Kelly looked stubbornly at the table and muttered something about being particularly clumsy right now. "Besides," she added, "she uh, she kinda smells..."

"Yeah," said Johanna, "I think someone made a poopy!" She held Annette out, but Chris swooped her up before Gina could.

"I'll take her - you sit, Mama."

"I don't know..."

"Don't worry, Ma'am, I'll make sure he won't get lost," Mark grinned, slinging one arm over Chris's shoulders and snagging the diaper bag with his other hand.

 

"That was subtle," Chris said in a low voice as the two men walked back to the bathroom.

"What, afraid I'll kiss you?" Chris snorted, and Mark smirked. "Besides, I really do like babies - they're good covered in barbeque sauce - OOF!" Chris had a sharp elbow and knew how to use it.

Chris transferred Annette to the side away from Mark as he slid past the other man into the bathroom. "Don't listen to the mean man, darling," he said to her, "Uncle Chris will make sure you're safe and sound.

"And you," he mock-growled at Mark, "I'll have you know she's now an official part of my team. And you don't want to make us angry. We'll beat you so bad your daddy'll think blue is his new skin color!"

"Ah, you're just jealous 'cause all the baby noms belong to me!"

The two men paused in their teasing, looked at each other in mildly horrified amusement, and then Chris started, "You know -"

"Yeah, yeah; forget I said anything," Mark said, a little sheepish. He closed the door behind them, and perched the diaper bag on the toilet's closed lid. "Here," he handed Chris the changing pad first, watching as Chris juggled the baby while expertly snapping out the pad to lay on the little counter.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Chris asked as he laid Annette down and stripped off the old diaper. Mark and Chris worked efficiently for a few minutes, laying out supplies, cleaning the baby's bottom, putting the new diaper on.

Chris picked Annette up and cuddled her close while Mark repacked the diaper bag.

"Johanna," Mark said, slipping the dirty diaper into the trash can.

"Is she ok?"

"She's fine, in fact, she's about to graduate from wheelchair to walker." Mark sighed.

"O-kay... so what's the problem?"

"That kind of *is* the problem. Once she's stable on two legs, she probably won't need a live-in helper anymore, and I'll be re-assigned. But... I kind of want to keep seeing her."

"You won't see her when she goes for PT?"

"No, I don't do the walking therapy with her. And, um, I meant I wanted to see her in a non-professional context."

"Ooooh," Chris bounced Annette a few times in his arms, grinning delightedly as she gurgled at him. "In other words, you've got it bad."

Mark's skin took on the most interesting tomato-red shade at that. "Yeah," he muttered. Then he grinned slyly at Chris. "What can I say? I'm a total lost cause."

"Thing is," Mark continued with a hangdog expression, "I don't think she thinks of me that way. Romantically, I mean. We have a good working relationship, but it's... And she's... well, the scarring has been kind of a blow to her self-esteem, you know? She doesn't think she's really attractive anymore."

"Hmmm."

"But she is, and it's not the outside that matters anyway - she's smart, and determined, and works hard, and she can do anything she wants! It's just that she's so insistent on being independent, I'm not sure there's any room for me in her ideal of life. But I want to be with her, want to help her and hold her and..."

"And you think she hung the moon," Chris said dryly. "Why me? You do know my romantic life is kinda nill at this point, right?"

Mark shrugged. "I'm not sure I could handle one of the girls out there right now."

Chris chuckled. "Good point. Have you even asked her if you could stay on?"

"No, I'm sort of afraid to, you know? I don't want to come off as creepy. And I don't want - I'm not some kind of pervert, to want to have sex with her while she's still working just to make it to two legs. But I'd like to... date her? Hug her, kiss her, maybe. Make her smile, definitely."

"So what you need is a way to transition from the professional to the personal in her eyes." Chris sighed at the moon-struck look on Mark's face; where was Buck when you needed him? The big romantic lug would surely have good advice concerning this Florence Nightengale thing Mark had going on.

"It's gotta be tough on her," he murmured.

"What?"

"Johanna - the pain and the therapy and everything. She's probably concentrating so hard on getting better that she's let everything else go. Does she have any friends, even? Local ones, other than us, I mean."

Marked looked blankly at him. "I can't think of any, she never gets any calls or cards or anything..."

"Even independent types get lonely, sometimes," Chris said softly. Clearing his throat, "I'd start with that then, introduce her to some friends, maybe a group outing to keep it from being too intimate too soon. See what her other interests are, other than stitching, and see if you can't help her find another group to get involved in."

Mark nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. I've got some friends I go hiking with - we like to go to Garden of the Gods to picnic every so often. I think she'll love it, and they're great people..."

Annette chose that moment to wail, and the two men looked abashed. Mark grabbed the diaper bag and with an agility that left Chris cursing, snatched the little girl from Chris's arms.

"Did mean old Chris scare you?" Mark laughed at the by-now-thoroughly-unconvincing glare. "Come on, girlfriend," he cooed at Annette, "let's get you back to Mama." Mark disappeared through the doorway, leaving Chris grinning and shaking his head. That boy *really* had it bad!

 

Gina left shortly thereafter, needing to take Annette home and settle her down for a nap, and the Lunch Bunch continued stitching and chatting and laughing for an hour, and Chris made some good progress on the war pony's windblown forelock. Idly, he considered trying to chart a feather tangled in the pony's mane, but finally decided not to. A charm might work better, but he'd see what it looked like all stitched up first.

Johanna's hissed breath signaled the start of the breaking-up ritual. "You all right?" Chris asked her.

"I'm fine, just... sore and tired from this morning, and it's sort of all crashing down on me at once, you know?"

Chris did know, and nodded as Mark came up and began helping her put her stuff away.

"I better be going, too," Kelly said. "History test tomorrow. Calculus, too, but that one'll be easy." She paused to look longingly at a complex pattern by Teresa Wentzler, then shook her head and scampered out the door. Chris didn't blame her, either wanting the stunning design, or being a little intimidated by it. He had picked up a Wentzler sampler pattern a few months ago, thinking Josiah might enjoy it, but hadn't had the courage to start it yet.

"And I gotta go grocery shopping," Diana said. "Got some kids need cookies and no sugar in the house."

"Horrors," Mary grinned as Diana left.

Chris packed up his briefcase and headed over to the specialty threads. He was thinking about getting some glisten-gloss and oversewing the thread on Lissandra's skin. The subtle shine reflected from a pot-light might make a nice effect. Startled by an odd thumping-squeak sound, he turned back to the table. He, Mary, and Shannon stared as Johanna walked - _walked_! - slowly to the shop door, leaning heavily on two metal crutches with arm braces on them. Mark held Melman's leash, opening the door for his charge they left.

"Will you look at that!" Shannon exclaimed softly. The three of them looked at each other and nodded in complete agreement - this called for a celebration!

"I'll take care of the cake," Chris volunteered, wanting the easy part in case the women decided on something more complex than that. They gathered their coats and belongings, and Chris opened the door for the two women, listening as they chattered excitedly.

He slowed down, letting Mary and Shannon pull away from him, and finally stopped completely underneath a tree midway to the Federal Building. The chill wind gusted, and the bare branches wrote a dirge against the sky, mourning the loss of the sun behind the solid cloud bank above. Chris eyed the rough bark, thinking about the girl who'd taught him to stitch, as he always did at the end of the Lunch Bunch meetings.

The first time he'd been exposed to cross-stitch had also been his first appointment with the psychiatrist that had helped him control his drinking, and get a handle on the horrible depression and pain of losing Sarah and Adam. Buck had driven him to the doctor's office, and offered to wait with him, but Chris had said no, too embarrassed and ashamed at needing help to want his friend around. So he'd walked into the waiting room alone, signed in with a shaky hand, and took a seat, trying to control his nerves. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done, that first appointment, and he'd almost walked right back out. He was on the verge of standing up to do so, in fact, when movement in the room's corner attracted his attention.

The girl in the corner was young, in her early twenties, and what Buck would describe as 'lushly plush'. She was stitching with quick efficient hands, pulling thread up, down, up, down through the fabric with her needle. She cast him a quick glance, and the tense fear in her eyes made him look more closely.

"I do it to keep from running," she said.

"Huh?"

"Cross-stitching. I hate coming here, because a 'good therapy day', one where you really make progress, makes you feel like crap - and a 'bad therapy day' makes you wonder why you're digging up all this painful shit to begin with. And I have to take the bus, so I end up getting here way early, and leaving way late."

Chris nodded, only now seeing the scars on her inner arms, slender red lines following the veins - suicide attempts. Now that he was looking for them, other scars popped out at him - round cigarette burns on her upper arms; the scar tracing her hair line starting near her left ear, and ending above her forehead; what looked like a stab wound peeking out from the shirt neckline. Except for those from the suicide attempts, the scars were old - some obviously old enough to have happened when she was in single digits.

"If you hate it so much, why do you come?" Chris asked.

She raised her head to stare at him, and for bare seconds the constant fear in her posture melted away into pure fury and determination. "Because I refuse - absolutely *refuse* - to let that son of a bitch win. It's *my* life, dammit, and I want it back!"

She took a deep breath, chest heaving as she fought for control. She dropped her eyes and muttered to the fabric, "So I stitch. 'Cause I know I need to come here, and the waiting is so damned hard, and running is too damned easy."

"Yeah," Chris said. And again, "Yeah." And he watched her stitch as he waited for his name to be called, clenching the plastic chair's arms periodically to keep himself seated. If this terrified kid could face her fears just for a chance at a normalcy - whatever that was - then he could, too. He couldn't let the son of a bitch that killed his wife and son win. He needed to do this, so he would.

He had weekly appointments with the shrink, and every week, the girl was there. Sometimes more at ease, sometimes less, but always, always, she stitched. And he watched. And then one day, he asked if she could show him how she knew what to do with her fabric and thread. For a couple weeks, he sat by her, sipping coffee and asking questions. The third week, she presented him with an easy pattern, fabric, and thread started on the needle. She had everything for him: a hoop to hold the project, scissors, a small glass jar to hold his 'orts', or cut thread ends, and a soft cloth bag to hold it all. "Now," she said, "you try it."

He was surprised by how soothing it was. He was delighted that his first pattern was an elegantly styled lettering spelling out "$$$$ this". He was hooked by the time he was called for his session, impressed that a series of simple movements could make the pictured whole - impressed that *he*, who did not consider himself particularly creative, could create something, something pure and untainted by pain and anger.

Looking back, Chris realized that was probably the turning point in his therapy, this realization that he could create, not simply destroy, when he touched something. Create something good and new and beautiful. It gave him something to look forward to, something to distract him when the yawning abyss of depression and anger grew too much, something, however small, to give him the first stirrings of pleasure he'd had in a long, long time.

He didn't tell Buck about this new thing, still feeling too raw and guilty about the ugly way he'd treated his friend during his angry drunken rampages. He needed Buck to be ok with him, was working hard to show that he was man enough to face his problems and take up his responsibilities again. He was far too worried about what his friend might think about this 'girly' hobby he'd picked up to say anything. He hid it, locked in a closet when Buck might come over, stuffed supplies in his duster pockets when he went to therapy.

He found out that Buck knew anyway the day his friend handed him a pattern of three frogs in the classic 'Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' pose. "I found this at Walmart," he'd said, "And I thought it was kind of cool, but I don't have time to put it together - can you do it for me?" Maybe Chris shouldn't have been surprised, but he was, and he understood the gesture for what it was - Buck saying he accepted Chris and didn't care what he did, as long as he wasn't destroying himself anymore. Home alone that night, Chris had cried himself to sleep in his son's room, holding tightly to the brown teddy bear that he'd given Adam for his second birthday.

The next day, Chris alternated between stitching the frog pattern, and listing out what he'd need to re-do the master bedroom. Buck had pitched in on the remodel, which grew to include the bathroom ensuite, repainting and recarpeting and even putting in a new plain tub with a vertical spa system. Sarah's knicknacks were largely put away, except for a few things that Chris couldn't bear to see gone, and the room turned into a haven for bachelorhood. And when Buck had hung the frog pattern in his living room right next to the tv set, Chris knew that Buck was saying that he believed in Chris and was proud of him. When Travis had asked Chris to start hiring for Team 7, the frogs had migrated to Buck's desk in the office, a gentle reminder of Buck's loyalty, faith, and love of this family he'd chosen.

Every week for a few months there, Chris had gone to his therapy sessions, and stitched with a girl he had become friends with over a cup of shared misery.

It happened suddenly, unexpectedly. After a few months of solid routine, one week Chris entered the psychiatrist's waiting room, and the girl wasn't there. He'd said nothing that week, thinking maybe she was sick, but when he didn't see the next week, or the next, he asked about her. She'd just stopped coming, the therapist said, and the two of them shared a worried look.

Chris had never even gotten her name. He and Buck had tried searching for her, but with so little to go on, the few leads they had quickly dried up. He stopped looking for her after a time, but he still wondered about her now and then, worried about her, and on Wednesdays, after the Lunch Bunch broke up, he would always take a moment to wish her well, where-ever she was.

He sighed, and began walking to the Federal Building. He was grateful to her, whoever she was, because he wouldn't have his job now without her introducing him to his hobby. And he promised her again, like he always did when he thought of her, that he wouldn't let the bastards win, would do his best to keep the bad guys from hurting the innocent, like she had been hurt.

He smiled. And if it hadn't been for the nameless girl in the waiting room, he wouldn't have his new friends at the Lunch Bunch. He wouldn't be cooing over Gina's new little girl, or celebrating Johanna's first staggering steps after more than a year of tough physical therapy. He wouldn't be spoiling a pony-sized dog or giving advice to a lovesick PT or discussing war and politics with Mary and Shannon or trying to figure out how to let Kelly down gently while still encouraging her budding interest in the male of the species.

And speaking of friends, he'd better see what chaos his team-mates were up to before he got to the office. He dug out his cell phone and called Buck, who, predictably, answered with a cheerful, "Hi darlin', what's up?"

"You couldn't think of any other way to greet me?" Chris grumbled, not irritated in the least.

"Well, I could always call you 'beautiful', 'luscious',..."

"How about 'awe-inspiring'?" Chris smirked. "I got to see Gina's new little girl today," he continued.

"Oh? And how is she?"

"Too young even for you, pal..."

The End


End file.
